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Road changes coming to North Cornwall Township

By JOHN LATIMER

Lebanon Daily News

Updated:
11/20/2012 09:06:02 PM EST

Traffic heading south on Cornwall Road Monday waits for the signal to change at the intersection with Rocherty Road in North Cornwall Township, where, next year, additional turning lanes and other improvements will be made to accommodate traffic congestion from Phase I of North Cornwall Commons, a sprawling residential and retail complex to be built on Cornwall Road. (LEBANON DAILY NEWS EARL BRIGHTBILL)

Nearly $10 million in road improvements to intersections in North Cornwall Township will be made in the next several years to accommodate construction of a sprawling residential and commercial development project.

North Cornwall Commons will include 160 upscale townhouses, a 100-room hotel, restaurants, offices and shops on 148-acres of land straddling the east and west sides of Cornwall Road to the north of Rocherty Road.

The project by Springwood Development Partners has been on the drawing board many years but only last week received conditional approval for the beginning phases from the North Cornwall Township Board of Supervisors.

Phase I of construction will begin next year on the northeast corner of Cornwall and Rocherty roads, directly across from the Lebanon Valley Expo Center, said Donna Deerin Ward, owner of LMS Commercial Real Estate, which has joined with Blackford Developers of Lancaster to form Springwood Development Partners.

"We've worked very, very closely with the township and the county to come up with a plan that we think is going to be very good for the community in the long run," Deerin said.

Deerin and other representatives of the project attended Tuesday's meeting of the Lebanon County Metropolitan Planning Organization's Technical Committee to discuss the transportation impact of North Cornwall Commons.

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An important part of the design was a Master Plan Traffic Impact Study that was presented by Eric Mountz, traffic engineer for the Harrisburg-based Traffic Planning and Design.

The master plan is a 1,500-page document that contains recommended changes to intersections along the Cornwall Road, Route 72 and Rocherty Road corridors that will be most affected by the development, explained Mountz. The intersections studied included Isabel Drive, Norman Drive, York Street, Colebrook Road and Wilhelm Avenue, he said.

A Volkswagen Beetle motors north on Route 72 through the Rocherty Road intersection in North Cornwall Township Monday. In the coming years, the intersection will get additional turning lanes and other improvements to accommodate road congestion from the North Cornwall Commons project on nearby Cornwall Road.
(LEBANON DAILY NEWS EARL BRIGHTBILL)

It was created by taking into account not only the North Cornwall Commons development, Mountz said, but several other residential and commercial projects that are under way or in the planning stages. They include The Preserve at Historic Cornwall, Alden Place, expansion of the Lebanon VA Medical Center and development of the land between Sheetz and Tractor Supply Co.

The traffic study accounts for 10-year and 20-year traffic projections, said Mountz. But the recommended road and intersection changes will be done to meet the long-term 20-year projection, he said.

The changes at Rocherty and Cornwall roads are necessary for the developers to receive Highway Occupancy Permits, and the estimated $2.5 million cost will be entirely funded by Springwood Development Partners.

Changes to that intersection include left turn lanes in all directions and right turn lanes for the northbound approach on Cornwall Road and the westbound approach on Rocherty Road to accommodate traffic heading to and from the Lebanon VA Medical Center and Cedar Crest High School and Cedar Crest Middle School.

The development is near the Lebanon Valley Rail Trail, and the roadway will be designed with wide shoulders and bike lanes, Mountz said.

The project will also include installation of public sewer that will be extended under Rocherty Road to the Expo Center, which is expected to eventually hook up to it.

Work on the Route 72 and Rocherty Road improvements will be done during later phases in the project and will be partially funded with a $5 million contribution from PennDOT that will cover construction costs. Traffic signals at Isabel Drive are also part of the plan.

Springwood will be responsible for the engineering, design, right-of-way acquisition and utility relocation that will precede construction at the Route 72 and Rocherty Road intersection. That cost is estimated at $2 million, said Deerin Ward.

Work on the project will take years to complete and will eventually involve future improvements to intersections at York Street, Tuck Street and Wilhelm Avenue that will be funded with local MPO money, said Lebanon County transportation planner Tom Kotay.

The traffic impact study is so comprehensive it will also be useful for planning future development in the area, Kotay explained.

"The master plan gives us a base of information about existing traffic conditions and future traffic conditions," he said. "It is a tool for us - a planning tool - that we will commit to continually update, working with this developer and others to update over time, and we are thinking that will be on a five-year interval."

To that end, the MPO Technical Committee voted to recommend that the MPO Policy Committee adopt the study as the Regional Operations Plan for the southeast portion of the county.